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rushthatspeaksThe next day I took the bus from the front of San Marco out to Villa I Tatti, where Thrud had arranged me a tour. The Villa I Tatti is a fourteenth-century villa in the hills just over the boundary between Florence and Fiesole, which was bought by Bernard Berenson in the early years of the twentieth century. Berenson invented the field of art authentication. For several decades no serious collector would buy a painting not passed by Berenson, and he got a commission on every sale. He established art history as an upper-class profession and created the concept that good taste removes the taint of being nouveau riche; he started with nothing himself. Berenson used his wealth to decorate I Tatti with Renaissance and medieval paintings, have its gardens done from top to bottom by the finest landscape artists of the era, and endow a library of fine art books and manuscripts and his gigantic photo collection (everyone who wanted him to look at a painting would send him a photo; one thing I Tatti is currently engaged in doing is digitizing its collection of ghosts, photos where the whereabouts of the painting are unknown due to war or other confusion, in the hopes that some of them will turn up again). The library and collections are used by academics and researchers to this day.
It's a pleasant walk up from the bus stop, through a wide winding street which is entirely I Tatti's, part of the original estate: their trattoria, their convenience store, their bar. Then you walk between their vineyards and olive groves, for the villa produces wine to sell and oil for the table, and pass their subsidiary outbuildings, which contain those servants of Berenson's who won the right to stay there for a lifetime (not many left, for he died in the mid-fifties) and the workings of the farm. Yes, it feels as feudal as it sounds. The hills are steep, rising suddenly from the flat ground; the olive leaves are silver and the vineyards straggling brown and green in the winter sun. The smell is pure country, though this is still considered urban.
Met Thrud at the gate and we went up the cypress avenue, steep between two rows of plumed trees. Thrud pointed to divots in the turf. Wild boar footprints, the cinghiale of the Tuscan hills, conserved, hunted, eaten, and treasured. They come through in the evenings, no respecters of stone walls or terraces.
The tour guide had me, Thrud, and an Italian gentleman who spoke no English, so it was a dual-language tour and we were always hopping back and forth. But it was mostly comprehensible. We poked our noses into the seventeenth-century chapel where Berenson and his wife are buried, clean and tidy and bare except for the daily flowers; stood at the top of the loggia and looked down the scenic panorama of the formal garden, which is in English-Italian Neo-Classical Revival style, meaning it has clipped hedges and reflecting pools and a remarkable dual illusion. The tops of the trees on the outside of the boundary hedges are clipped to topiary forms, like smooth stones and waves, extending the garden visually in a dramatic stripe of beauty, but those same trees' unclipped bottoms and foliage-laden undergrowth had been the bosky depths behind the cypress avenue, sinking back out of sight into the distance, too dark for passers-by to notice the interrupting hedge-wall behind the thickets. Now that is planning.
Then inside, to look at the collections.
November 24th
Some questions no one has, as yet, asked me about Florence, as a convenience for the traveller:
-- Does one become less tired after the jet lag wears off?
Not remotely. I saw a study once that claimed that museum-walking is the most tiring form of exercise because it is the one for which our bodies are designed least well, and I believe it. There is an incredible drain that comes from being in museums and around great art, the drain of the physical movement combined with the intellectual drain of paying careful and close attention, the strain of trying to make out complicated details, and the mental effort of trying to get things stamped into one's long-term memory. The thing is, in Florence, leaving the museum won't help you very much, because all the buildings and shopfronts and so on are just as riveting, just as historic, just as full of intricate detail. It is important to try not to burn yourself out. These things have been here for five to seven hundred years and will still be here tomorrow, or in ten years, or twenty. I was first here fifteen years ago and a lot of stuff still has the same curator's captions. Your life may be short, but Firenze is long. Relax. Have a gelato. Becoming tired and cranky will help nothing. I am doing kind of a marathon of museums at the moment, and should take my own advice.
-- What is the most important item to bring to Florence?
In winter? Socks. Good walking shoes are also critical, but socks are vital. You can get very good shoes here which will wear like iron and last you twenty years and be worth the investment, because this is a center of the leather industry, but socks are expensive and Italian and usually cashmere or something and won't last any longer than your plain cheap ones. Bring more than you think you need, because laundry can be difficult too. One can hear the English students sitting about in the Piazza della Republica trading pairs of clean socks with each other for cigarettes and money.
-- Won't all this gelato be bad for me?
No. Even if you can't have dairy, there are plenty of sorbettos and granitas out there. You know where those calories are going? The damn stairs, that is where. The Uffizi stairs, the Pitti stairs, the Duomo stairs, the Accademia stairs, the stairs, the stairs, the stairs. Everyone I know eats enormously in Florence. Have at least a gelato a day. If it's winter, you can have a hot chocolate afterwards.
-- Will I ever be less dehydrated?
Not in Italy, you won't. Carrying a water bottle everywhere will only make you need a bathroom at inconvenient times. Rome has very good public water fountains, which will help if you are in Rome, but they are mostly the kind which require practice so you don't soak your clothes and spray the surroundings. Drink deeply in the mornings and evenings while you are in your accommodations and can just keep refilling a glass. Exception to the water bottle rule: I am told you should have one to climb the Duomo and intend to take one when I do it.
-- Are my feet ever going to be warm again?
Put on a second pair of socks. You'll be sleeping in socks. I told you to bring a lot of them. Being warm in every part of your body at the same time is an affectation the Italians have not adopted.
-- Why doesn't anybody clean up after their dogs?
Because there is a law saying that they have to clean up after their dogs. If this law were repealed, the streets would probably be a lot cleaner, but paying attention to the government is seen here as a sign of stupidity.
-- What is up with the plumbing?
The specifics vary, but just think of it as a practical joke. Do not wash your socks in the bidet, no matter how tempting it may be. You know where the bidet has been.
-- I am very distressed by the Italian attitude towards gypsies, and would like to do something about this.
Oh, I'm very distressed too. However, the barriers of hatred, fear, and general nastiness are now so high on all sides that, say, giving money to any specific gypsy is not going to help and is going to serve primarily as a quick means of getting your pocket picked. They have no reason to trust or like you and plenty of reasons for the reverse. As a tourist, you are a mark and need to be aware of that. Polite ignoring on both sides is the absolute best you can expect. Give them a wide berth, as any interaction will be dispiriting and painful all round.
-- How do I keep from being hit by a car/bicycle/Vespa/horse-and-carriage in these incredibly narrow Florentine streets?
As time goes on, you will develop the mystical capacity to realize whether the horns and bells that are always audible in the streets are coming from a distance behind you on the street you are walking on, or whether they are coming from an adjacent non-intersecting one, and you too will have the Florentine ability to step three inches to the right and have a speeding vehicle miss you by two of those inches. It is a thing that comes on its own, and actively trying to develop it won't help. Florence isn't Rome, so the traffic is not literally trying to kill you, personally, for existing; it bears no malice, only impatience. Don't try to keep on the sidewalk, as that's where all the tour groups are. Remember, you actually have the right of way. Relax. Have a gelato.
It's a pleasant walk up from the bus stop, through a wide winding street which is entirely I Tatti's, part of the original estate: their trattoria, their convenience store, their bar. Then you walk between their vineyards and olive groves, for the villa produces wine to sell and oil for the table, and pass their subsidiary outbuildings, which contain those servants of Berenson's who won the right to stay there for a lifetime (not many left, for he died in the mid-fifties) and the workings of the farm. Yes, it feels as feudal as it sounds. The hills are steep, rising suddenly from the flat ground; the olive leaves are silver and the vineyards straggling brown and green in the winter sun. The smell is pure country, though this is still considered urban.
Met Thrud at the gate and we went up the cypress avenue, steep between two rows of plumed trees. Thrud pointed to divots in the turf. Wild boar footprints, the cinghiale of the Tuscan hills, conserved, hunted, eaten, and treasured. They come through in the evenings, no respecters of stone walls or terraces.
The tour guide had me, Thrud, and an Italian gentleman who spoke no English, so it was a dual-language tour and we were always hopping back and forth. But it was mostly comprehensible. We poked our noses into the seventeenth-century chapel where Berenson and his wife are buried, clean and tidy and bare except for the daily flowers; stood at the top of the loggia and looked down the scenic panorama of the formal garden, which is in English-Italian Neo-Classical Revival style, meaning it has clipped hedges and reflecting pools and a remarkable dual illusion. The tops of the trees on the outside of the boundary hedges are clipped to topiary forms, like smooth stones and waves, extending the garden visually in a dramatic stripe of beauty, but those same trees' unclipped bottoms and foliage-laden undergrowth had been the bosky depths behind the cypress avenue, sinking back out of sight into the distance, too dark for passers-by to notice the interrupting hedge-wall behind the thickets. Now that is planning.
Then inside, to look at the collections.
November 24th
Some questions no one has, as yet, asked me about Florence, as a convenience for the traveller:
-- Does one become less tired after the jet lag wears off?
Not remotely. I saw a study once that claimed that museum-walking is the most tiring form of exercise because it is the one for which our bodies are designed least well, and I believe it. There is an incredible drain that comes from being in museums and around great art, the drain of the physical movement combined with the intellectual drain of paying careful and close attention, the strain of trying to make out complicated details, and the mental effort of trying to get things stamped into one's long-term memory. The thing is, in Florence, leaving the museum won't help you very much, because all the buildings and shopfronts and so on are just as riveting, just as historic, just as full of intricate detail. It is important to try not to burn yourself out. These things have been here for five to seven hundred years and will still be here tomorrow, or in ten years, or twenty. I was first here fifteen years ago and a lot of stuff still has the same curator's captions. Your life may be short, but Firenze is long. Relax. Have a gelato. Becoming tired and cranky will help nothing. I am doing kind of a marathon of museums at the moment, and should take my own advice.
-- What is the most important item to bring to Florence?
In winter? Socks. Good walking shoes are also critical, but socks are vital. You can get very good shoes here which will wear like iron and last you twenty years and be worth the investment, because this is a center of the leather industry, but socks are expensive and Italian and usually cashmere or something and won't last any longer than your plain cheap ones. Bring more than you think you need, because laundry can be difficult too. One can hear the English students sitting about in the Piazza della Republica trading pairs of clean socks with each other for cigarettes and money.
-- Won't all this gelato be bad for me?
No. Even if you can't have dairy, there are plenty of sorbettos and granitas out there. You know where those calories are going? The damn stairs, that is where. The Uffizi stairs, the Pitti stairs, the Duomo stairs, the Accademia stairs, the stairs, the stairs, the stairs. Everyone I know eats enormously in Florence. Have at least a gelato a day. If it's winter, you can have a hot chocolate afterwards.
-- Will I ever be less dehydrated?
Not in Italy, you won't. Carrying a water bottle everywhere will only make you need a bathroom at inconvenient times. Rome has very good public water fountains, which will help if you are in Rome, but they are mostly the kind which require practice so you don't soak your clothes and spray the surroundings. Drink deeply in the mornings and evenings while you are in your accommodations and can just keep refilling a glass. Exception to the water bottle rule: I am told you should have one to climb the Duomo and intend to take one when I do it.
-- Are my feet ever going to be warm again?
Put on a second pair of socks. You'll be sleeping in socks. I told you to bring a lot of them. Being warm in every part of your body at the same time is an affectation the Italians have not adopted.
-- Why doesn't anybody clean up after their dogs?
Because there is a law saying that they have to clean up after their dogs. If this law were repealed, the streets would probably be a lot cleaner, but paying attention to the government is seen here as a sign of stupidity.
-- What is up with the plumbing?
The specifics vary, but just think of it as a practical joke. Do not wash your socks in the bidet, no matter how tempting it may be. You know where the bidet has been.
-- I am very distressed by the Italian attitude towards gypsies, and would like to do something about this.
Oh, I'm very distressed too. However, the barriers of hatred, fear, and general nastiness are now so high on all sides that, say, giving money to any specific gypsy is not going to help and is going to serve primarily as a quick means of getting your pocket picked. They have no reason to trust or like you and plenty of reasons for the reverse. As a tourist, you are a mark and need to be aware of that. Polite ignoring on both sides is the absolute best you can expect. Give them a wide berth, as any interaction will be dispiriting and painful all round.
-- How do I keep from being hit by a car/bicycle/Vespa/horse-and-carriage in these incredibly narrow Florentine streets?
As time goes on, you will develop the mystical capacity to realize whether the horns and bells that are always audible in the streets are coming from a distance behind you on the street you are walking on, or whether they are coming from an adjacent non-intersecting one, and you too will have the Florentine ability to step three inches to the right and have a speeding vehicle miss you by two of those inches. It is a thing that comes on its own, and actively trying to develop it won't help. Florence isn't Rome, so the traffic is not literally trying to kill you, personally, for existing; it bears no malice, only impatience. Don't try to keep on the sidewalk, as that's where all the tour groups are. Remember, you actually have the right of way. Relax. Have a gelato.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 01:37 am (UTC)With this sole exception, I've been enjoying your travel log! Travel logs are my favourite things -- thanks for sharing your experiences.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 02:10 am (UTC)It is also independently true that a very great number of the street beggars and professional pickpockets in Italy wear a very homogeneous costume (for women, it is floral headscarf, long swirly skirt, long-sleeved cotton blouse) which, as far as I can tell, indicates ethnic identification, and that custom in Italy (and possibly law, I haven't checked) outright forbids anyone of Roma ethnicity from employment at anything besides begging and pickpocketing-- and from this I mean that it is both the custom of Italian employers not to hire, and, at least in prevalent rumor, for gypsies not to apply.
Basically, the situation is that anyone you encounter in Italy who is begging or pickpocketing will be identified by the public around them as a gypsy, and has a very high chance of self-identifying that way. And you will not, as a tourist, see anyone dressed that way or identified as that who is not begging or pickpocketing. (If you live in Italy and are fluent in the language it is of course different.)
And what I am trying to say is that, as a tourist, there really isn't much you can do about the whole mess, because no one involved has any reason to trust you, and it's all just going to be very unpleasant if you aren't aware of that. You can do things involving lobbying with organizations on a legal level, but on a personal level if you do not have language fluency it is a very bad idea.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 03:38 am (UTC)It is true that not all Roma are beggars and pickpockets.
I know that it's confusing and disorienting when racism is so pervasive. And doubly so because you're such an outsider in this situation. But that fact does not mean that it's harmless to just go along with what everyone else says is okay, which seems to be what you're arguing here. (I mean, am I reading you right? If I've made a mistake and you weren't intending to say that you stand by your conflation of the term "Gypsy" with the words "beggar" and "pickpocket," then I'd be very glad to be told I'm wrong.)
Also, WRT your thesis: actually, there is something you can do to work for social change. You can watch your own words and their implications, and you can confront people who seem to be thoughtlessly repeating the kinds of destructive attitudes that perpetuate the problem.
I'm sure I sound horribly sanctimonious, and if I could find a way to re-word this with more tact, then I would. Failing that, I'm asking you: please, please, please, don't take this as some kind of high-handed attack. I know this stuff can be really hard to see through, especially when everyone else seems to have so completely bought into it.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 07:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 01:23 am (UTC)No. That is not what I said.
You are correct that I said: 1) lots of Italians hate gypsies, and 2) lots of people conflate the term 'gypsy' with 'beggar/pickpocket/street person'.
What I also said, both in the original entry and in the comment you just replied to, is that this situation, where the Italians are very racist and the terms get conflated all the time, is really upsetting.
As a result of being really upset about that, there are two common reactions that many tourists have:
1) assume that the Italians are right about the conflation, which is both untrue and part of what I was saying I am upset about
and 2) as a result of 1), assume that street people = gypsies and try to give street people money to alleviate the injustice the Italians are perpetrating.
I have also heard of 3), which is that sometimes tourists, when introduced to people who self-identify as Rom, will try to give those people money without being asked for it, because the tourists believe they must be street people/destitute.
3) is insulting. 2), if you are a tourist who does not speak the language, is a really bad idea, because the street people have no reason to like or trust you, the local gypsies (whether or not they are street people) have no reason to like or trust you, and coming in as a tourist means that you generally do not have the background to help enact major social reform and are in someone else's country to boot.
In addition-- and I have done this-- trying to have the 'not all gypsies are street people and not all street people are gypsies' argument across language barriers does not end well; the frustration of being unable to communicate exactly what you mean leads to the discussion blowing up and somebody becoming angry and/or confused very quickly. Persons fluent in Italian (and I am not one) can and should work to try to deal with the pervasive Italian anti-gypsy prejudice.
As Kate said, what I have been trying to say is that tourists should be wary of people they, as ignorant non-Italian tourists, think look like gypsies. Because, for one thing, it's likely to be a misconception.
I have not conflated gypsies and beggars/thieves; the point of that part of the entry was complaining about that conflation and warning people against one of its more standard manifestations, and that is, in fact, what I have been trying to explain to you.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 05:41 am (UTC)HA! Yeah, Rome traffic was _scary._
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 04:25 am (UTC)I'm fairly certain that this is something the Italian side of my family carried over with them and has passed down from my great grandparents to my grandparents to my mother. I do not ever remember being warm in winter inside my house as a child. Going to my mother's house in the winter now, I always remember to put on an extra sweater and thicker socks, and I live in an apartment with windows that don't close all the way.
Good to know it's genetic.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 12:29 pm (UTC)You'd wash your socks in a bathtub, in which people have also washed their lower parts? It's a clean bidet -- is it yet ritually unclean? Is something where people make themselves clean really inherently dirty?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-11 03:41 pm (UTC)Because there is a law saying that they have to clean up after their dogs. If this law were repealed, the streets would probably be a lot cleaner, but paying attention to the government is seen here as a sign of stupidity.
<3 Really? I absolutely believe this, but.
Also, I can totally hear Thrud saying "Relax. Have a gelato."